Handcuffs, manacles, or shackles – known colloquially as irons or cuffs – were a type of restraint that limited an individual's wrist movement. Occasionally, they were additionally used to secure the person's ankles.

In 2151, a team of Ferengi successfully subdued the crew of Enterprise NX-01 and boarded the ship with the intent of stealing anything of value. After they were unable to locate a vault aboard the craft, they revived Captain Jonathan Archer to question him, but not before handcuffing him to a hand hold in one of Enterprise's launch bays, to prevent his escape. Thereafter, one of the Ferengi, Krem, uncuffed Archer so he could carry goods from Enterprise onto the Ferengi ship but later shackled him to another hand hold in a corridor aboard Enterprise in order to bring him some food and a drink from the vessel's mess hall. While Krem was gone, Commander Tucker covertly tried to release Archer's bonds with a small lock pick but doing so proved too difficult and Krem soon returned. He again took the shackles off Archer, so he could continue the manual labor. When Archer refused to do any more work, Krem once again handcuffed him to a hand-hold. Sub-CommanderT'Pol thereafter stole the key to the shackles from Krem and eventually freed Archer, him ordering her to "open these things." Except for Krem, all the Ferengi were subsequently shackled aboard their own ship as it departed from Enterprise. (ENT: "Acquisition")

In the final draft script of "Acquisition", the Ferengi handcuffs were consistently referred to as "shackles". Also, T'Pol was scripted, after freeing Archer from them, to use Krem's shackles to secure an unconscious Krem to a hand hold, she having applied a Vulcan nerve pinch to him.

After Menos was finally captured, he was shackled, in an outpost on a moon of Pernaia Prime, by his captors: Captain Archer, Sub-Commander T'Pol, and Ensign Travis Mayweather. When Menos started a fire inside the outpost, T'Pol took off his manacles. She was about to refasten them round his wrists when he managed to escape. (ENT: "The Seventh")

The glowing-when-active style of these high-tech shackles was referred to in the script for "Canamar", which also specified it was to be depicted with "a practical effect" rather than using, for example, CGI. The script also stated about the restraints, "They afford the prisoner some arm movement, but not much." In the same script, the Enolian restraints were initially described as being secured around the ankles as well as the wrists. However, this isn't the case in the final version of the episode.

Similarly, Klingon shackles were scripted to appear in ENT: "Judgment" (as evidenced by a single reference in that episode's final draft script), though they are not depicted in the final version of that installment. [1]

A gag scene was filmed during the production of TOS: "Spock's Brain", showing Leonard Nimoy in handcuffs, with a prop gun pointed at him, holding a newspaper with the headline, "Spock gets 2-year prison term". Psychologist Benjamin Spock was sentenced to prison after encouraging draft evaders and claiming the Vietnam War to be anti-constitutional on 11 July1968, during the filming of the episode. [2]

Bashir is released from his restraints before being placed in a holding cell

Later that year, Doctor Julian Bashir was handcuffed and paraded down the Promenade of Deep Space 9 to the security office, during Luther Sloan's holographic recreation of the station. The holographic representation of Captain Sisko protested, claiming a Starfleet officer shouldn't be dragged across the Promenade in irons. (DS9: "Inquisition")